


Some Rain

by LookingSideways



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, In which Jack isn't a total ass, Internalized Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:59:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3570539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingSideways/pseuds/LookingSideways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone was shocked when Angie and Jack announced their engagement, and despite their best attempts, their wedding night ended up different than most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Rain

It was the spring of ’55 when they announced that they were engaged, and the shock on their friends and family’s faces were a sight to behold. Angie’s mother and grandmother had outright burst into tears, and even her father had clasped Jack’s shoulders, telling him in a gruff voice, “Thank god, I was getting worried, you know. Over thirty, and still not married!"

Jack’s family had reacted in a similar way, with Gam-Gam wrapping Angie in a lung-crushing hug, saying, “Oh, I’m so _proud_ of you two!”

Daniel had nearly choked on a piece of chicken, and even Peggy, one of the most collected people Jack knew, looked severely unnerved by the news, saying, “I’m afraid I’ve must have missed the part where you two were dating.” Angie would later attest that she had asked her, “Are you _sure_?” several dozen times that night alone, and many more in the months to follow.

****

The ceremony was on a sweltering July day, with both of their families packed into the aging church. Despite his apprehensions, Jack could feel himself getting swept up in the ceremony, smiling at his nephew - the nervous ring bearer - and at Peggy & Daniel’s eldest, who tried her hardest not to fall while she spread the red petals across the aisle. Even the priest’s speech was firing him up, and by the time Angie walked down the aisle, he supposed he must have an appropriately dumb smile across his face. The kiss he had been worrying over for weeks was nothing, and as he later found out, Angie was a pretty damn good dancer.

The couple were giggling as they made their way through the halls of the hotel, high on energy and just a bit of wine. When they finally found the room they’d booked, Jack took Angie by surprise by lifting her into his arms and stepping into the small space, setting her down on the sole bed.

Then, the illusion broke.

Their eyes met, and a nervous air invaded the room. “I guess we should…should…” Jack was mumbling, his speech airy.

“We don’t have to-“

“It’s tradition.” Jack’s eyes roamed the room, as if looking for an escape, some way out of the predicament life had left him in. “If we’re going to try and do this, we should do it right.”

Angie drew in a breath to argue, but the look in Jack’s eyes stopped her. “Fine.” Angie sat up suddenly, taking charge of the situation. “I’ll take the other side, you stay here. We both undress with our backs to each other, then turn around.” Already moving, she looked back to Jack for his reaction. “Got it?”

“Yeah.”

A little over a minute later, when the rustling of clothes had stopped and a heavy silence hung over the air, Angie asked, “You done over there, pretty boy?”

After Jack grunted his approval, Angie took a deep breath. “Alright, time to draw back the curtains! Tonight, we have for you two very special guests, Angela Martinelli and John Thompson!” Pursing her lips, she added, “Although I suppose it’s Angela Thompson now.”

“Acting like we’re on a stage isn’t helping,” Jack hissed. “And I’ve told you not to call me John.”

“Different strokes for different folks, pretty boy.” Angie paused. “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

Turning around, Jack saw that Angie was already sitting on the bed, and after she motioned for him to join her, he clambered onto the white sheets as well. The two simply sat there as the silence rushed back in. Jack noted the smooth curves of her body, her thighs, the way her red lips were slightly drawn together. It was all very attractive, Jack thought. _She_ was very attractive.

Yet his body seemed incapable of recognizing it. Sure, his brain could recognize that there was, in fact, quite a beautiful woman in front of him, but his body seemed disconnected, as if it could not stir up any lust for the female body, and from the way Angie was glancing at him, not looking too long at any one spot, and with no hunger in her eyes, he could tell she was in a similar position. Any other man and woman would have already been going at it by now. _Any normal man and woman_ , Jack thought.

As if he could fix the situation by action, Jack cupped one of her breasts with his hand and began to lightly stroke it. The skin was soft and smooth, a sharp contrast from his calloused hand. Still no reaction from his disobedient body, although Angie was now leaning slightly into his touch. _Friction_ , he thought, _is all it takes. Friction, movement, that’s all that’s really necessary._ With that thought in mind, he leaned in towards Angie’s face, but paused an inch away. He could feel her hot breath on his lips, but his body, betraying him again, refused to move. In the end, it was Angie that closed the distance, but the kiss was over as soon as it started, and in the next second, she was already halfway across the room rummaging through her suitcase. Pulling on a nightgown, she set down a pair of underpants next to Jack.

“But-”

“Listen, pretty boy. This-” She gestured in between them, “Isn’t going to happen tonight. And probably not any other night, either.”

“I-”

"It’s alright. It’s just not the way that we are.”

Jack’s face scrunched up, and Angie realized just how fragile he looked, sitting naked on those white sheets. So different from his regular macho appearance. In this moment, he didn’t resemble the person who shut down others, picking on their insecurities. In this moment, he wasn’t the federal agent who kicked down doors and dirtied his hands with others’ blood - he was simply a man who was afraid of himself.

“No.” He was gazing at some distant point on the wall. “No, it’s not alright. A beautiful woman in front of me, and I can’t- I don’t want-”

Angie’s fists clenched, and she was about to intervene when Jack’s whisper broke through the silence.

“I’m broken.”

“You’re not-”

“But I am. I li- I like-”

“If you’re broken, then I suppose I am too, huh?” Angie’s furious eyes met Jack’s as she continued on. “Yes, we’re homosexual-” Jack flinched at the word, but Angie continued on, “And yes, we’re probably going to hell, and yes, if anyone found out, I’d be fired on the spot and you could kiss your medal of valor goodbye.”

Angie reached up to grab Jack’s chin, angling his face towards hers. “And yeah, we probably are broken. Certainly not normal. But if it were possible to reverse, I don’t think either of us would be in this situation.”

Angie sat back, eyeing Jack for any sort of a reaction. When none came, she said softly, “Did I ever tell you about my first kiss?”

When Jack shook his head no, she continued. “I was five years old. Some idiot boy, probably on a dare, comes up to me, and without warning, grabs my face and pulls it towards his.” Angie’s face scrunched up. “It was disgusting. Afterwards, he ran off, and this girl next to me asks if I’ve ever been kissed before. I said no, and she said, ‘Well, I have to show you how it’s done right!’ and then she’s kissing me, and I have to say, for five-year-olds, it was strangely good.”

Jack scoffed.

“Anyways, after that, it turns out the teacher saw the whole thing. And it wasn’t the boy who got to feel the sting of her yardstick.”

Suddenly, Jack’s face had taken a darker quality. “I was eleven when I had mine.” Licking his lips, with his eyebrow furrowing, he looked down. “I don’t even remember what led up to it, honestly. All I remember is looking into his eyes before we started kissing, and how quickly my body froze up when I heard the gym teacher shout our names.”

“I had never seen someone so angry before, and the way he tore us apart was frightening. I got sent home immediately, and when my father got home from work…”

“Well, I’m afraid I wasn’t a very pretty boy when he got done with me.”

He was startled out of his reverie by the feel of water on his face, and startled, he found that he was tearing up. Stealing a glance at Angie’s worried face, he tried to backtrack, to undo the last few minutes. The feel of cloth against his bare skin suddenly met him as Angie embraced him.

“You’re a mystery, you know that?”

“Hmm?”

“Most of the time, you’re quite frankly, an ass.” Angie drew back to look at him. “But sometimes, when you let down your defenses, you’re actually not that bad, Jack.”

Clearing his throat, Jack tried to regain his footing. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“I’m bad at comforting, aren’t I?” Angie let out a sigh. “I think that we all have some bad stuff in our pasts. But, I think we need to be able to rise above them in order to become better people. It’s hard, I know it’s hard, but if we have help and enough strength, it’s possible.”

“I suppose, what I’m saying is that this marriage can be something. Not in the ways other marriages are something, but I think we can both understand each other enough to help each other. We all need someone to come back to at the end of the day, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s a lover, or family, or a friend.” Smiling gently, she added, “I don’t want to be married to someone I hardly know. I want to be married to a friend. I’d be willing to be that person that you can tell your problems to at the end of the day, if you’d be willing to be mine.”

“That…That sounds nice,” Jack said as Angie pulled him down into a lying position, facing her.

“I’m glad.” Angie smirked. “Now put on your underpants.”

Looking down, Jack realized that he’d forgotten the fact that he’d taken all his clothes off, and quickly grabbed for the pair that Angie had set down, shivering slightly in the cool hotel room. The warmth of the sheets was suddenly on top of him, and before he could fully register what was happening, Angie was already snuggling into his side.

“Is this alright?” Angie opened her eyes after she noticed Jack tense up.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “I’m just…not used to this.”

“You’ve been doing the hit-and-run all this time, huh?”

“That’s…one way of describing it.”

“I’m told I’m quite poetic.” By this time, her voice was muffled as she buried her face into Jack’s shoulder. Once again, silence took over the room, but it was no longer unbearable. Jack was starting to drift down into sleep when he heard, or rather felt, Angie’s soft humming.

“Ella Fitzgerald?”

Angie’s muffled _mmhmm_ buzzed into Jack’s shoulder, and just when he thought those would be the last words of the night, Angie’s singing floated into the air, muffled by skin and tiredness, but still pleasant.

_Into each life, some rain must fall_

_But too much is falling in mine_

_Into each heart, some tears must fall_

_But someday, the sun will shine_

**Author's Note:**

> >This is my first fanfic, so any criticism is welcome. Hopefully I've managed to keep these two decently IC- I've always seen Jack as a very insecure person who tries to cover it up with his usual personality. 
> 
> >Minor disclaimer: I'm bisexual, so I personally haven't experienced the inability to be attracted to an entire gender, hopefully this is accurate, let me know if not. 
> 
> >Yes, you'd pretty much get fired immediately for being gay (and still can be, sadly), and many GI's were dishonorably discharged (a "blue discharge" to be more accurate) and denied benefits based on their sexual orientation.
> 
> >The song at the end is "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall", by The Ink Spots & Ella Fitzgerald.


End file.
